I first heard the story of this man on BBC World Service radio. It was amusing the way the folks at the BBC seemed to be amazed at this. One man having 86 wives and over 170 children. Incredulous? Well, what can’t happen in the west does happen everyday here in Africa. In Ghana, you can marry all you want and no one can challenge the legitimacy of what you’ve done. Just make your marriages traditional marriages and its ok.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s about this man in Nigeria who, saying he’s been blessed by God to be able to perform his duties- both to wives and 170 kids. I wonder if he’s able to recall their names when addressing them.
But wait, for that’s not the funny part. The authorities in Northern Nigeria just woke up to this fact. Or maybe the man built a very large mansion and hid wives and kids until they started overflowing. Whatever the case, they are asking this man to divorce all but four of his wives. He’s been told to choose four of his favourites. But with 86 women, I wonder how he’s going to manage. And no one is saying anything about the kids. Maybe he can disown them too. Over here, its very easy for a father to pronounce you as being “disowned” from the family and no one would bat an eyelid. Especially if the child is perceived to be the guilty party.
Being a Muslim (preacher), he is entitled to four wives. Just four. No more. Therefore his other marriages are now deemed as unlawful. But if these marriages are unlawful, why is it that he’s being asked to choose any four? Shouldn’t only the first four marriages be the ones seen as “legal”? The fact that he’s being asked to choose means that the other marriages are deemed as valid of sorts.
So our guy here has to select only 4 of the wives or he may face death. I love these people. First, he was threatened with being banished. I wonder where they had in mind when pronouncing the banishment judgement. Maybe a hut in a remote forest somewhere, minus wives and kids. That would have allowed him to reflect on his “sins”. That failed. As I write this, this has been downgraded to the risk of being evicted from his house because he’s refusing to sack the wives.
But I’m still wondering, how he was able to elude the traditional authorities with all these kids and wives. Maybe the 86th wife kept picking quarrels with the other wives and this drew their attention to the happenings in their neighbours house. And all those kids too.
Sometimes, the best we can do is just laugh at ourselves.
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